Hi-Mobile.net sent us in a review unit of Panasonic's flagship point-n-shoot camera, the LX2. This camera kept the first place among other similar products in the past year with its two unique features: HD video recording and wide-angle for landscape shooting.

Well, it depends if you are mostly interested in video or high-quality pictures. For video, the viewfinder is not needed, but for better pictures a viewfinder is useful -- especially if no tripod can be used.

With a wide angle leans equivalent of a 28mm in the 135 format and optical image stabilization, this could have been the perfect party camera. It would have been nice with an optical view finder but that probably doesn't matter all that much if you intend to use it on parties where it is often better to shoot from the hip to capture the moment before its gone.

The problem is that parties often means low light, and that means high iso setting and that means much noise. Even in broad daylight there seam to be a slight noise problem.

My guess is that the sensor is too small. The problem with digital cameras is that vendors try to compete on who can provide the most megapixels, but never tell the customer how large their sensors are. Most consumer cameras have sensor sizes where it is not meaningful to have more than five or so megapixels before the noise becomes to apparent.

On the other hand, that is a good thing if you are shopping for a digital camera as you could save a lot by selecting the model from last year with fewer pixels but with equal image quality. If you really need more pixels go for some of the semi pro DSLR from Canon or Nikon, they have larger sensors, and subsequently less noise problems.

My main issue with this camera is the horrible chroma denoising it makes. It turns colors into big blotches of color fuzziness and banding and general awfulness. You have to shoot raw to bypass this, and then you lose many nice features and the shot-to-shot times go through the roof. All panasonics with the Venus III processor has the same problem. For this reason I would choose an LX1 (which has a Venus II) over the LX2 any day.

I asked for it specifically instead of a phone. For almost a year now Hi-mobile was sending us phones for review (phones are their main business), but I thought I should make a different review this time, as a breath of fresh air. This camera was interesting to me as a review item mainly because of its HD functionality. It was the only digicam in 2006 that could do 720p.

When it comes to the camera, it looks just awesome if you ask me. I checked out the videos, and they are "out of this world" compared to cameras in this price range.

I have one question;

Does this camera have a audio out port for headphones?
I would assume this camera can play video files from the sd-card, and there is a audio out port, i would load up my sd-card with videos for those long flights when going on vacation. it's a feature iv missed on all my digital cameras so far (many of which has a 3"+ lcd. Such a waste).

No. I don't think that it is a good idea to watch video on a camera because these cameras can only decode mjpeg which is huge in terms of filesize. Additionally, having the LCD ON for a full movie, it will drain down the battery much faster than you think. Cellphones and PDAs are much better for movie viewing on a plane than digicams, because of the battery problem.

Would someone at OSNews please elaborate on the process of re-encoding the videos?

I have a Panasonic FZ5 and I have tried a ton of things.

I have got as far as using mp42avi to get the motion-jpeg into an avi format. Then I try using virtualdub or avisynth to join and encode and that is where I run into problems.

I haven't had problems with video's from other people's cameras. Actually, I find virtualdub and avisynth quite nice since you can apply filters and fix levels and do all of that photoshop stuff on a video.

I just haven't got it to work with the videos I take with my camera.

The problems I run into are that half way through a clip, the video will get choppy and lag, then the audio is out of sync.

Hi, Long time reader, first time poster.
I didn't expect to see a review of gear here. Normally I go to engaget for that. For such a small review it wasn't bad, although kind of off topic (os's).
If I really want a digital camera opionion, I go to dpreview.com... you know?
We tried out a panasonic 5.something digital cam last year with a 10 or 12 x zoom, can't remember which, and it took ok pics, but we were shooting at the ocean at a sailboat and got this real bad bloom on a sailboat sail, which a friend of ours who is in the know and saw the pics told me that it was probably some plastic down in the leica lense. We are going Nicon or maybe a sony a1 next time (when we can afford it)
Thanks for a change of pace, but hope you'r not going to do this regularly.
Oh yeah, for the guy wanting digital video help, go to Doom9.net. Lots of helpful software and howto and such for that. Thanks for a great site osnews, its my number one read each day.

The Leica version of this camera doesn't have that ugly bulch (fingergrip?) that ruins the nice simple lines of this camera. I'm talking about that chrome and black protrusion underneath the Lumix logo. Is it just glued on there? Does it come off?

Why is this on OSNews? this is good stuff but good for engadget or some other site, OSNews should deal with OS and stuff directly related to OS... now if you reviewed the camera operating system or something like that, then it is ok, but a simple consumer review, why is this here?

Why not? It's a digital camera, something so common that almost everyone has or want one... it's something to record your memories... and it's a piece of electronic technology too, that needs support in OSes and will generate pieces of data to programs take care later (images and raw images)...

...Actually, it's a pretty nice review. I just missed something else about compatibility with Linux, windows and mac (not just playing the video files, but actual connectivity to download the data from the camera and about RAW compatibility... DNG would be nice there... =| ). Also, about how much you depends on the supplied software instead of the ones you're used (and trust) to.

Basically, having looked at dpreview.com for a while and using their comparison thing, the DMC-LX2 (and LX1) are the only cameras that show up when I look for what I want. It's almost a perfect fit except

a.) Low picture quality(!). To be fair, I rarely if ever use anything above ISO 50 on my Canon Powershot A75, but I'd rather not buy an expensive camera knowing it's 'limited' to ISO 100.

b.) No built-in lens; I don't want to lose it, or forget to put it on and damage an expensive piece of equipment.

c.) No viewfinder (though to be fair I only started using the one in the camera I have, after I read about the LX2 lacking one)

d.) Price. Comparatively cheap, but that's still out of my budget.

Maybe I'll ask for a DMC-LX3 for Christmas next year, assuming the LX3 has much less noise.

I have one of these cameras and while acknowledging that it is a flawed camera, it has some unique features and is great to use.

It is not the camera for a party shooter, low light movement needs high iso and if you care about the results, you don't go there. Having said that, the noise is no worse in magnitude than the much lauded Canon Powershot A620.

For the landscape shooter (myself), with the pocketable size and panoramic aspect ratio the camera is a gem. If you stick to iso100 or perhaps iso200 for colour shooting, the camera will give great quality images in both daylight and at night with a tripod. B&W shots taken at iso400 take on a very satisfying film grain look. The combination of the sharp lens and 10mp means that the resolution is very high for this type of camera, easily surpassing the A620 in my tests.

The big caveat is that the in-camera jpeg processing is completely lousy, so it is fortunate that there is a RAW option. RAW shots write in about 5s but take up about 22MB, so big cards are needed. When passed through the supplied SiklyPix raw processing app, the results are really excellent and the camera is capable of superb results.

So if you want a handy snapper, this definitely isn't the camera but if you are prepared to work around it's weaknesses it will deliver great images.